Sarah Amanda Jones, Watercolor and India Ink on Arches Paper. 8 x 10 inches, ©2012

The dark clouds are hushed.
Cold sea curls into a bay,
Lit by crescent moon.

I felt very quiet and even nurturing while I painted this one. I kept thinking of a child’s room and the book my momma read me when I was little, Goodnight Moon. The bay, the clouds, the smooth water, and the low-hanging crescent moon all felt so cozy to paint.

This painting like many others is available for purchase here.

Sarah Amanda Jones, Watercolor and India Ink on Arches Paper. 5 x 5 inches, ©2012

 Waves of salty black
swell and clap, recede and pool-
one tireless motion.

I painted this little one when I remembered how much I love the intimacy and exciting challenges of paintings small. Enjoy! (This painting and many more are available for purchase here.)

Sarah Amanda Jones, Watercolor and India Ink on Arches Paper, 24 x 18 inches. ©2012

Silent shoreline rocks
withstand howling winds above,
fast waters below.

I loved painting this one- the whole thing came out in a flurry of ten minutes! You can check out purchase information for this painting and many more here. Also make sure to join my list, and I’ll email these paintings and haikus to you every Friday so you’ll never miss one.

Sarah Amanda Jones, Watercolor and India Ink on Arches Paper, 8 x 10 inches. ©2012

Clouds blanket the cold.
Moon crouches low and round, sees
her face in the waves.

I’m so pleased to show you the second painting of my new year-long series on the ocean. This painting along with many others is available for purchase! Go here for more info.

Sarah Amanda Jones, Watercolor and India Ink on Arches Paper, 9 x 24 inches. ©2012

Moon is nearly full.
Casting her flickering gaze,
she lights the sea’s path.

I am so excited to reveal the first painting of my brand new series on the ocean! I’m combining two nature-loves: transitioning through the seasons and the glory of the ocean. For all of 2012, I’ll be following the beautiful ocean through its seasons and times of day.

The earth rotates once a year around the sun and once a day around its axis, so a year is like a day. The sea I’m near (the Pacific via Los Angeles’ coast) doesn’t have blooming flowers in the spring or falling leaves in the autumn, so I’ll be demonstrating the seasons by linking them with their corresponding times of day: winter corresponds with night time, spring corresponds with dawn, summer with noon, and autumn with dusk.

All year long, I’ll be painting ocean scenes whose time of day matches the current time of year. I’m also writing a haiku for each of these paintings as the title. The painting above is both the first of my “Sea at Night” winter-long series and my larger “Sea In One Turn” year-long series. Watch for a new painting and its haiku posted right here every Friday. Or better yet, subscribe to get them by email so you’ll never miss one.

Thank you for enjoying, and Happy New Year!

P.S. This painting and all to come are available for purchase! Go here for more info or email me.

His skin wraps tightly around protruding bones. In the slums of Mumbai, he watches the barren dust fly up around him with bits of sun-scorched trash in its grip: torn black plastic bags, ashy styrofoam. All are empty: food, a long-forgotten love. His stomach twists in knots, but kindly offers anesthetic to ease his pain- Knowing it has been heard, the stomach quiets down. Numbs him out. The man has forgotten his desperate hunger. But not really.

And The Man Starving For Beauty-

His brow wraps tightly around blank, sunken eyes. On the busy streets of New York, he watches lifeless concrete protrusions slouch stoically above him. Thoughtless billboards pant for attention, glaring down in obnoxious neon. Dust-covered taxis swirl up debris; pigeons pick at trashcan stench. His eyes weep for beauty but dry their tears to ease his pain- Exhausted by the uneventful quest for something captivating, something life-giving, they glaze over a bit more. Shut out the world. The man has forgotten his sad, sore blankness. But not really.

Starving for food. Starving for beauty.

Thankfully, we have already begun bringing food to those in need, and may we increase and sustain our efforts til starvation sleeps forever. Shall we do any less with creating and bringing beauty to those in need (most all of us on the planet)? Surely not.

May we grow to truly see, then have compassion for, and finally take inspired action to relieve this Beauty Epidemic, having spread so quietly across our globe. May we awaken the life-spark of creativity living deep within our beings to make beauty everywhere: in the studio, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, at the computer, in the car.

Because beauty nourishes as food nourishes. Sharing beauty is no less powerful than sharing a meal.

Those choir members of his could do no wrong. They were powerful. They were magical. They were the source of a beauty I needed, craved, delighted in, and cherished. As a young tot, I had special privileges as my grandfather’s granddaughter, and so I got to go ‘backstage’ to the choir room at church before, between, and after the services. Dressed in their giant red robes above me, the choir bustled around, gliding past me like heavenly beings. They laughed and talked with each other and went over their sheet music together, sometimes bending down to squeeze me or say something sweet.

After they had sung their siren songs at both services, and church was over for the day, the choir would trickle back into the choir room and slide open the mirrored doors to their shared robe closets. As they shed their red robes and hung them up, they exposed their ordinary Sunday clothes. Suddenly, they started to look a lot like every other grown-up passing in and out of the church every week. But I knew better, I reminded myself: these people are magical. They may look like the bored and grumpy grown-ups on my pew an hour ago, but they are not like that. They have life in them, beauty and magic in them.

Over the years, as my body grew as tall as theirs, stretching me up to crystal-clear earshot range, I heard unpromising pieces of their everyday conversations: praising their kids for doing the stuffy, unquestioned “right thing,” grumbling about soul-sucking work still planning to show up on Monday, no questions asked. They even bossed Mother Nature around: “It shouldn’t be this cold outside yet!” My fire of praise grew tired, and my heart sank with “I should’ve known better” disappointment. They were just like all the other grown-ups after all. I forgot the lively wonder bouncing in their hearts, a wonder they may have never really seen in themselves at all.

But listening again to choirs singing Christmas hymns on Pandora this season, it’s all coming back to me and freshly too. All at once, my heart is lighting up to witness the unmistakable beauty of those choir members singing in heavenly harmony. Suddenly, I know for sure: we all have the magic in us. Around every bored and lonely grown-up (and every child too) is wrapped a majestic red robe that proves their capacity for the purest and most captivating beauty-making.

Solidly supported by Jasper’s warm and genuine love for our class, I felt free to let go of self-judgment and embrace a new way- a gentle curiosity about my body, even its limitations, and the life energy that coursed through it. During our practice, Jasper reminded us often that the important thing was not how successfully we could perform the poses, but rather how connected and loving we were to our bodies in the process.

My favorite part of my practice soon became (and remains) shavasana, where after an intense and focused series of flows, we let our bodies lie heavily on the floor for long moments of sweet surrender. In the silence, Jasper cooed to us, “Let the earth hold you. Feel it supporting your weight, supporting your being alive. Feel how the earth loves you, and let yourself sink deeply into it. Trust the earth to hold you while you rest, and let go completely.” Ahhhh… As I followed her direction, I felt utterly connected to God.

That surrender brought me peacefulness, but it also challenged my long-cherished beliefs.

My eyes were opening to a truly beautiful and real way of experiencing God that didn’t come directly from the pulpit or the Bible, that hadn’t necessarily earned the church’s stamp of approval. This new way was something that from a distance, I had assumed was impossible- certainly impermissible. But as I experienced it face to face, it actually didn’t seem so new.

Opening to this new way more and more, I began to recognize it quite clearly as that gentle breeze of the Spirit that had brushed me up so many times in Christian church services, a breeze that I had somehow been associating strictly with the pulpit and the Bible. Perhaps it was looser than that, I began to wonder. Perhaps it was living within and without the pulpit and the Bible.

A real possibility emerged to me: what if the Spirit was gliding freely throughout all of life, unconstrained, dynamically involved, the absolutely radiant expression of love? What if, as I had already learned in part, this Spirit-love was truly and intimately life’s very source and therefore immediately accessible to every living thing?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After six months of pondering these questions, researching them, practicing yoga, making art, teaching, and other things, the scheduled time had arrived to move from Birmingham, Alabama, to Pasadena, California, to start my studies at Fuller Theological Seminary.

I was absolutely ready to roll up my sleeves and “distill my faith”- a phrase that had become my mantra.

I figured that if I could have such true experiences of God in yoga (an Eastern spiritual practice) with a teacher who I was pretty sure wasn’t technically a Christian (gulp), then how much religious stuff was I holding onto unnecessarily? How much fluff had I unwittingly stuffed into my brain, and what could I let go of without losing the essential truth?

What was the essential truth? I felt open and expansive asking that question.

I trusted the depth of my relationship with God’s Spirit, a relationship I had been intently cultivating ever since a traumatic childhood experience left me desperate for spiritual comfort. I felt anchored, and I knew my heart could rest no matter what kind of questions I was asking. I was on a mission to get to the very essence- the essential shining core- of my divine connection.

I hit the books with my heart open and malleable to a side of faith I had never explored before: the non-Greco-Roman side. Whoa. I took every chance I got to learn Eastern spirituality. In all my classes, I chose to write my papers on the Hindu slant, the Buddhist perspective, Open Theology, Taoism, and everything else I had never allowed myself to be immersed in or even consider as valid. I was deeply drinking in the nourishment of new perspectives and freely letting go of unhelpful parts of familiar perspectives.

Like a caterpillar going through a growth spurt, I was shedding my itchy chrysalis, on the verge of a breakthrough.

At the end of my third quarter, when I had made about 1/3 of my progress towards my MA in Theology and the Arts, I handed in my final papers- my final, final papers. Walking out of the admin building that late afternoon, I felt the exuberance and pride of graduation even though I held no diploma in my hand. I palpably sensed the threshold I had crossed in my time at Fuller. As the breeze stroked my hair and the earth supported my feet, I felt light yet grounded.

Distilling my faith had resulted in a genuine metamorphosis. I stood liberated and ready for more.

wind-tousled bamboo,
a screen,
rain-stained glass.

The bamboo rustles,
and the light-ovals sway…
disappearing, reappearing,
reforming, merging.

The November sun
must be sinking
quickly now:

The ovals have
stretched out longways,
silently reminding me
of the cat I love.

Sarah, the fact of the matter is you’re going to die.

You may grow old first; you may not. And the death of your human body is the grand finale of all the smaller deaths you’re enduring before then.

You see, all seven billion of us humans on earth right now- we are all going to die. In fact, some of us are dying right now. And it’s not only the human ‘us’ that share this fate, but the whole ‘us’ of creation! All animals, plants, and every form in the universe. Even the stars will die one day, and some small creatures only live for several hours before they meet their death.

The following may surprise you, Sarah: You only fear death because you assume it’s the ultimate proof of your deepest fear, the fear that you are fundamentally separate from the rest of life, from God, from other people, even from yourself at times. Separate is so scary because it equals alone and abandoned, and you don’t even like to think of those things. But when you do, you cry, “What could be more lonely, abandoned, helpless, and hopeless than my own death?”

Well here’s the thing. That whole ‘separate’ philosophy you’re building on here is nothing but an illusion. The Grand Illusion, yes, but an illusion nonetheless. And you know that all it takes to surmount an illusion is a simple flip of the light switch. So let’s turn that light on:

Your death, Sarah, proves not abandonment, but rather intense togetherness with all of creation. How? Because we are all born. We all live. And we all die. This is our distinguishing mark as human beings and part of the physical world of form: the moment of birth followed by the moment of death with many special (even if gone unnoticed) moments in between. So this human body you’re in right now links you perfectly with all of creation, making your death the final seal of that togetherness.

And your connection goes even deeper than that. The world of form is an expression of a deeper reality, and just as you are powerfully connected with the rest of creation in the world of form, so are you connected in spirit even deeper. This physical world is sparked to life by the world of spirit, where all are one in God, where all are integral parts of God. Sarah, you are an integral, indispensable facet of God regardless of the state of your human form and experience. And so truly, you will never die though your body will fail you, though even the earth supporting you will die also.

It’s like Eckhart Tolle said: You know those sped-up videos of a flower blossoming or a sun setting? Well, what if we were to record the universe that way? Speed it up, and there is life blooming and decay settling everywhere, constantly, just at different times and different rates. And the spirit behind all that glorious activity remains. And you are that spirit, Sarah.

In Conversations with God, Neale Donald Walsch quotes God as saying death is the best thing that will ever happen to you. What a release! Just pure spirit experience without all the mind-chatter you harass yourself with everyday, all the knots you tie in your nervous system.

If only you knew how free you are to actually enjoy this being human, how free you are to explore, to create, to breathe for heaven’s sake! Rumi said that just being in this body is a state of rapture. Whoa. Combine that with Walsh’s take that death even surpasses the human experience in greatness, and whew! You’ve got nearly unbearable ecstasy on your hands.